Friday, 28 October 2016

Her name speaks of revolution.
Underneath her bones is an abandoned city.
Waking up to injustice

The first time you kiss her like an apology she tastes like forgiveness
The second time she tastes like blood.

Her name is an anthem in your head
of a country that refused you refuge

Her name sounds like love to you

Your name sounds like revenge,
like gunshots,
Fire
Rage in her mouth , a trigger shaped like a swear word
and a barrel full of broken promises
the bullet shells clinking to the ground
Echoing anything but forgiveness

In the war inside your head
You realise your punishment
Is living with yourself.

In the war inside your heart
There is no victor
Your body is an abandoned graveyard
of all the dreams that died in you
marching like soldiers to their death
Your mind refuses to grant you refuge

In the war inside your bones
Your demons are waiting to swallow you whole
To shred up your soul

Your reckoning has come, he wears black ,
he calls himself judgment day
Spitting stones and shooting missiles your way
You're on your knees praying for an escape, paying for it with regret
But you're confusing escape with death.

Monday, 17 October 2016

Vice in their eyes , lies tainted with cigarette smoke in their mouth , the world lying flat in the palm of their hands, their eyes on your chest, the curve of your hips, watching you out of the corner of their eyes , their tongues curving around the word baby, their lips pretending they're sealed, though they'll splinter your reputation in a second, their hands everywhere they shouldn't be.

You sit with these boys in class,you take the bus home with these men , you go to work clocking in hours with them ,

but god forbid they see you as anything but a conquest,
a mission,
an escapade
a foreign flavour they crave,

they try to get you to fall in love,
Smiling when you fall and break your face against the cold stone pavement of reality
telling you falling in love hurts while they
lick the blood off your face
But honey, love doesn't taste like stones in your mouth and humiliation

they want the landscape in the background of their homecoming story to be the wind in your hair ,
they want your name on a list of 'achievements' next to your underwear,

they see you , and god forbid they think of anything apart from your breasts,
god forbid they think of anything resembling consent,

honey, what a shame you weren't born with independence between your legs like them,
what a shame you're soft down there like a pillow to soak in their unwanted advances ,
their sugar, their baby ,

their smiles like poison dragged across your mouth ,
their appetite for the syrup in your tongue unquenchable, you gasp ,
you turn away. But you.

you shock them.

A girl with a mouth full of words like razor sharp blades,
ripping through their veins,
breathing living speaking rejection,
the audacity your speech bleeds,
the shock that you claim your body your own by covering it completely,
declaring it not theirs to look at
to touch
to speak about
to think about

and now the vile monsters are clawing to get at you , to touch, to get a taste, they fetishise your fucking toes, your feet, they imagine worse, they jack off to the way you walk , they open their mouth to swallow you whole ,and these primal beasts cannot process your brain , your thinking , your natural innate urge to say no, no , your inborn instinct to kick them in the crotch and set their lungs ablaze with dismissal , and risk waking the sleeping dragon, you take the risk every single time, even though it could take your life.

Sunday, 9 October 2016

You reach the basement. The wall is painted a nauseating bright yellow. You've heard yellow is supposed to be cheerful, you stare at it trying to soak the happy in.
The sun is blinding , the coffee is bitter , breakfast means entering the mess where strangers look at you, prejudice colouring the corners of their eyes , rumours blurring their vision of you.
You look away.

Across the road , next door, everywhere are people who are free of guilt, poison soaked tongues spinning their lies into the grapevine, vilified sentiments taking up all the space in their throats, using slander as arrow poison.

Why do you keep running , he still asks ; it's because it's harder to hit a moving target.

Constantly looking over your shoulder , sleeping uneasy as as a hundred tongues wag to the tune of a thousand lies , lies that crawl their way up your back when you lie down, sneak into your mind when you're unguarded, you wake up to find your posture so defensive , fingers scrunched in a fist, ready to lash out.

Lies that haunt you in the eyes of strangers , your mouth is halfway in a smile when you meet them before you slice your lips against them, your smile wiped off your face with blood.

Lies building up a reputation when you're assisting the boy next door who lost his friend to suicide, rumours about your best friend in spending the night with an unmarried man, she starts, she's hurt, your curl yourself around her the next time she sleeps, like you could protect her when you were eaten up by the million mouths yourself .